Iota Cassiopeiae


Iota Cassiopeiae is a star system in the constellation Cassiopeia. The system has a combined apparent magnitude of 4.53, making it visible to the naked eye. Based on its parallax, it is located about 133 light-years from Earth.

Components

Iota Cassiopeiae is known to be a quintuple star system. The brightest star system, ι Cassiopeiae A, contains a white-colored A-type main-sequence star with a mean apparent magnitude of +4.61. The primary component is a tighter binary star system itself. The two stars themselves were resolved by adaptive optics, revealing two stars. These are designated Aa and Ab. The primary is classified as an Alpha2 Canum Venaticorum-type variable star and the brightness of the system varies from magnitude +4.45 to +4.53 with a period of 1.74 days, because of its magnetic field. The fainter companion is a G-type star with a mass of only. The orbital period of the system is about 50 years.
A second component, ι Cassiopeiae B, is a yellow-white F-type main sequence dwarf with an apparent magnitude of +6.87. The semimajor axis of its orbit is 2.88 arcseconds, and it has an orbital period of 620 years around ι Cassiopeiae A.
The third astrometric component, ι Cassiopeiae C, is another binary like ι Cassiopeiae A. It comprises two stars, a K-type star and a M-type star. It orbits at an angular distance of 7 arcseconds from the A-B primary.